This is a zine dedicated to black metal written by a follower of the left hand path, This zine has been around in a different format for a while and I have decided to make an edition for www.blogger.com, for more information email occultblackmetalzine@yahoo.com, new albums as well as classic albums will be reviewed on here as long as their good quality black metal,

Monday, May 14, 2018

Barren Altar/Entrenched In The Faults Of The Earth/2018 CD Review

Barren Altar are a band from San Francisco, California that plays a mixture of black and funeral doom metal and this is a review of their self released 2018 album "Entrenched In The Faults Of The Earth" which will be released in June.

A very dark, heavy and melodic funeral doom metal sound starts off the album along with the solos and leads also bringing in a great amount of depressive sounding melodies while most of the tracks are very long and epic in length as well as some of the riffing also using a small amount of tremolo picking at times.

Vocals are mostly high pitched black metal screams while the faster sections of the songs also use a decent amount of blast beats which also gives the songs a more raw feeling along with some growls also being added into certain sections of the recording as well as some clean guitars also being utilized at times.

One of the tracks is all instrumental while the songs also bring in a decent mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts along with the solos and leads being done in a very melodic style when they are utilized as well as all of the musical instruments having a very powerful sound to them and as the album progresses a brief use of clean vocals can also be heard.

Barren Altar plays a musical style that takes depressive black metal and funeral doom metal and mixes them together to create a sound of their own, the production sounds very dark and heavy while the lyrics cover a metaphysical plea for the voluntary end of all human life

In my opinion Barren Altar are a very great sounding mixture of black and funeral doom metal and if you are a fan of those musical genres, you should check out this band. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Nexus Of Grief" and "The Great Awakening of Death". 8/5 out of 10.